News : Human rights

Ms. Rayhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old house decorator, is threatened with hanging. She was arrested on the charge of killing a man called Morteza and has spent seven years in prison. The man, as old as Ms. Jabbari’s father and a retired agent of regime’s intelligence ministry, refers to her office and attempts to rape her. In the ensuing scuffle and in self defense, Rayhaneh Jabbari hits the man with a knife that leads to his death.

Reports from Iran indicate that in prison the interrogators make her confess under torture that the murder had been premeditated with political motive. This is while government agents who searched the scene of the incident discovered fruit juice that contained anesthetic that the intelligence ministry agent had brought along with him.

A cellmate of Rayhaneh said that in a quick acquaintance with her during the day break she had seen scars of torture on her body to coerce her to confess that the murder had political motive.

Rayhaneh’s mother, an actress thar teaches theatre, is pleading for help from all to save her daughter’s life. Ms. Rayhaneh Jabbari’s lawyer Abdulsamad Khorramshahi has said that the sentence has been finalized and has been sent out for final approval and execution.